McCain to Kerry: You’re about to hit the trifecta of failure

posted at 10:41 am on April 9, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Say, remember when these two were such good friends that each was rumored to be on the other’s short list for running mate? Good times, good times. Yesterday on Capitol Hill, John Kerry and John McCain threw rhetorical punches at each other that had McCain talking about twigs, and Kerry talking about the table used in the Vietnam peace talks. The sparring went on for several minutes, with McCain warning Kerry that he’s about to hit a “trifecta” of foreign-policy failures:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday accused Secretary of State John Kerry of presiding over a “trifecta” of foreign policy disasters.

McCain lambasted his former Senate colleague at a hearing in which Kerry faced wide-ranging criticism about the administration’s handling of crises in the Middle East and Ukraine.

“I think you’re about to hit the trifecta,” McCain declared.

“Geneva II [a Syrian peace meeting] was a total collapse, as I predicted to you that it would be. … The Israeli-Palestinian talks, even though you may drag them out for a while, are finished,” McCain said. “And I predict to you that, even though we gave the Iranians the right to enrich, which is unbelievable, that those talks will collapse too.”

Kerry hit back: “It’s interesting that you declare it dead, but the Israelis and the Palestinians don’t declare it dead,” Kerry said of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

“We’ll see,” McCain interrupted.

“Well, yeah, we will see,” Kerry shot back.

“It has stopped. It has stopped. Recognize reality,” McCain retorted.

Actually, Kerry did finally declare the talks all but dead, and blamed Israel for it. However, McClatchy throws a flag on that claim:

Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry said both sides had taken steps in recent days that stood in the way of progress. But he said a turning point came when an Israeli housing agency published tenders for 700 new apartments.

“Seven hundred settlement units were announced in Jerusalem and, poof, that was sort of the moment,” Kerry said.

Not exactly:

The announcement on the housing units came as the Palestinians were refusing to agree to continue the peace talks.

Kerry’s frantic drive to settle the nearly seven-decade-long clash between the Israelis and Palestinians has come to nothing. Everyone who cares about Israeli security and the suffering of the Palestinians wished him well in his efforts, just as everyone knowledgeable about the conflict understood that those efforts would fail.

And yet surprisingly few on either side have drawn the proper conclusion — which is that, for now at least, there simply is no solution to the conflict. …

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has had an intractable quality from the beginning: two peoples with competing, exclusivist claims to one small parcel of land. That’s one important reason why every attempt to broker a lasting peace agreement over the past 66 years has fallen to pieces in the end — because the end is unreachable.

For one thing, each group insists on making Jerusalem its capital city and claims to be unwilling to accept anything short of that. Yes, it’s at least possible that this tension could be finessed by some kind of dual-sovereignty agreement. But there’s no finessing this: the Israel government demands that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the historic homeland of the Jewish people (meaning it will not be permitted to become a binational state), while the Palestinians insist on a “right of return” to land within Israeli territory, which would instantly transform it into a binational state — and one in which Jews make up a minority of the population.

That, my friends, is the very definition of an intractable conflict.

Yes, that’s about right. Until the Palestinians realize they can’t talk Israel into national suicide, talks are pointless, except on lower-level ancillary issues such as water policy (a particularly difficult issue in the West Bank) and security arrangements. Kerry’s presence is not just valueless, it stirs the pot even further.

McCain wasn’t the only Senator to get tough with Kerry. Jim Risch (R-ID) said that it looks as though American foreign policy is “spinning out of control,” which got Kerry irritated all over again. Risch had better not expect to make Kerry’s next VP short list.

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Kerry wants to do something, anything to make himself look good. Getting into the Israeli-Palestinian thing is dumb. Capable people haven’t been able to do anything with it let alone a bunch of incompetent liberals.

You know whats as irritating as John Kerry stupidity? Jimmy Lloyd auto-play videos, that’s what. Really irritating stuff, all around, but I confess I could probably stand one or two of those videos if we had somebody with a brain as SecState.

Interesting back & forth.
But as Kerry notes, McCain is all bluster. That can play well to the crowd, but the ‘reality’ (to use McCain’s word) isn’t lost on anyone with more than a moment to think about all of these issues.
John Kerry hasn’t fixed the Syrian conflict? He hasn’t fixed the Israel/Palestine issue? He hasn’t resolved the Crimean conflict?
Well please, McCain..step right up from behind the mic in the oak paneled room and do take care of all.
Now first, why don’t you tell us just what defensive weapons you’d approve sending to Ukraine to that would military deter the Russian military?
McCain is ironically offering the type of shallow foreign policy speak we usually hear from a Ted Cruz.
Maybe they can hold a presser together.

Yeah, I always loved that. President Nixon ordered him into Cambodia for Christmas in 1968. Don’t know what did the ‘searing,’ but it wasn’t reality. Prolly the same stuff that seared Biden’s memory about FDR going on national television to address the American public about the stock market collapse in 1929.

OT
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Clue: McCain is Kerry’s best friend and there is NO light between them, nor btw. their ears.

You could have said this, in similar words, alas. You’re so partial and so blind. I keep waiting for you to once, just once, criticize a leftie the way we blast a ‘rightie’. Others, you are what you are, a pretender.

Kerry is well known as an anti-American liar with no perception of reality. That is why he was chosen by the most anti-American president in our history. If he wasn’t a pathological liar, Barry would never have selected him to help bring our country to its knees. The world knows this to be true and cannot accept terms effecting their countries as this administration has no intention of representing the United States in a positive manner. That is why this administration is a laughingstock on the world stage. The Czech PM said,”America may survive the presidency of Obama, but can they survive those who elected him?” That remains to be seen.

Say, remember when McCain voted to approve the nomination of Kerry as Sec of State? Has anyone dug up McCain’s comments on that yet?

Look, I’m no Kerry fan, and what he’s trying to do has been marked well by failure to this point, but I’ll grant he’s trying, and trying hard, which is more than anyone can say about the four odd years of negligent administration of the State Department by Hillary Clinton.

Unlike with Hillary, Kerry’s success or failure depends the President’s backing his initiatives and efforts, something Obama is incapable of doing because his character prohibits it.

And need I remind anyone, McCain especially, of the highlights of Hillary’s term:

1. Repurposing a Staples Easy Button as a gift to the Russian Foreign Minister with wrong Russian word put on it.

Well please, McCain..step right up from behind the mic in the oak paneled room and do take care of all.
Now first, why don’t you tell us just what defensive weapons you’d approve sending to Ukraine to that would military deter the Russian military?
McCain is ironically offering the type of shallow foreign policy speak we usually hear from a Ted Cruz.
Maybe they can hold a presser together.

verbaluce on April 9, 2014 at 11:10 AM

Well, Verbaldouche, the last I checked, the Dog Eater in Chief has assigned that task to John (Reporting for Duty) Kerry, just like it was the Hildebeasts job before that. And you and your band of merry misfits elected Barky to heal the planet, did you not? Why then, do you idiots demand that the right offer solutions to the problems you all said you could solve? You clowns did not want help with health care ‘reform’, don’t want help on immigration, yet whenever y’all fail, it’s always, ‘well, show us your plan or STFU. Wrong-o, moose-breath, to quote Johhny Carson. You guys claimed you knew it all and had all the solutions. Put up or shut up.

Kerry blames Israel primarily because little brown oppressed people are not really responsible for their actions according to PC belief. No one in America is clever/brave enough to see that this has never been about the “Palestinians” and the Israelis, it has always been and will always be about Islam and teh Joooooos. It should be disturbing that America is training Muslims in Jordanian camps in order to effectively kill Christians in Syria. Helping the jihad aint helping America. The price will kill you.

Interesting back & forth.
But as Kerry notes, McCain is all bluster. That can play well to the crowd, but the ‘reality’ (to use McCain’s word) isn’t lost on anyone with more than a moment to think about all of these issues.
John Kerry hasn’t fixed the Syrian conflict? He hasn’t fixed the Israel/Palestine issue? He hasn’t resolved the Crimean conflict?
Well please, McCain..step right up from behind the mic in the oak paneled room and do take care of all.
Now first, why don’t you tell us just what defensive weapons you’d approve sending to Ukraine to that would military deter the Russian military?
McCain is ironically offering the type of shallow foreign policy speak we usually hear from a Ted Cruz.
Maybe they can hold a presser together.

verbaluce on April 9, 2014 at 11:10 AM

Kerry is a buffoon for pretending he could solve the Israel/Palestine issue. The Syrian conflict, though, is a disaster made entirely by the Obama administration, including Hillary. Kerry is a proxy for Obama in this case, and it is undeniable that Obama has badly bungled the whole business.

Crimea is the same situation. The Obama administration showed weakness and irresolution in Syria, and Putin is taking advantage of it. They failed to strengthen our position in eastern Europe with missile shield technology, and left the door wide open.

As for what weapons could be deployed, I can virtually guarantee that if we went back to sharing missile shield technology with Poland and a few other friendly nations, Russia would suddenly be willing to make a few concessions. They might even declare that they had accomplished their mission of protecting ethnic Russians in Crimea, and withdraw.

Why? Because they pay attention to what makes them stronger or weaker. Missile defense tech in eastern Europe undercuts Russia’s ability to strongarm their neighbors. And they don’t like that one bit.

If you want to see a shallow foreign policy, just watch. Obama’s foreign policy is as shallow as it gets, and the results are ‘spinning out of control.’

Yeah, I always loved that. President Nixon ordered him into Cambodia for Christmas in 1968. Don’t know what did the ‘searing,’ but it wasn’t reality. Prolly the same stuff that seared Biden’s memory about FDR going on national television to address the American public about the stock market collapse in 1929.

Awesome. McCain is a small government conservative after all, and I can be OK with him being in the Senate. I’m so glad you guys fed us this piece of news. I was about to just continue hating McCain for good reasons.

Did he wear it to President Nixon’s FIRST inauguration on 20 January 1969?

Somehow, Nixon was President and ordered Kerry into Cambodia in December of 1968.

lolz

Resist We Much on April 9, 2014 at 12:22 PM

Old inside joke. I should really explain for anyone else who hadn’t heard it before.

Taranto’s Best of the Web (Wall Street Journal) used to enjoy poking Kerry ( the “haughty, French-looking Senator who by the way served in Vietnam”) about the claim he made that one of the special ops people who he supposedly ferried into Cambodia gave him a hat, which he actually carried around in his briefcase for years afterward, and took out whenever people looked skeptical about his claims.

John Kerry hasn’t fixed the Syrian conflict? He hasn’t fixed the Israel/Palestine issue? He hasn’t resolved the Crimean conflict?

verbaluce on April 9, 2014 at 11:10 AM

The problem isn’t that he hasn’t “fixed” conflicts and issues. The problem is that he’s made things worse and humiliated the US as a result. His stupid comments regarding Syria forced Obama to withdraw an aircraft carrier battle group and totally SCREWED all the Syrian rebels. (The outcome doesn’t bother me since I support stalemate in Syria, but the weakness displayed hurts our credibility.)

His weakness gave Putin the confidence to annex Crimea – which may not have occurred with a different SoS and PotUS.